March 29, 2014 - A Lovely Day

It was beautiful, warm and sunny today. A perfect day for getting my seedlings planted in the Kennel Garden box. After a morning of watering the indoor plants, I grabbed the containers of chard, spinach and lettuce from the patio table and set out to get them planted. What would normally have taken me an hour or two took half the day! But......I planted 12 Swiss Chard, 6 Winter Density lettuce, 9 Sierra lettuce, 9 Jericho lettuce, 27 spinach plants and 75 beet seeds. The bed is now full and covered with netting. Now I'm exhausted, but happy!

Kennel Garden, surrounded on two sides with snap peas and sweet peas. Ready to grow!

I should be picking this over wintered spinach, but it's not looking too appetizing to me. Tough winter leaves are not nearly as tasty as.....................

This lovely baby spinach/lettuce salad I had for my dinner last night. All of it from the seedlings that were growing on the patio table! There's even a Happy Yummy sweet pepper in there somewhere! I only had one that was ripe, but many more on the way. I have to admit, the indoor grown pepper didn't have a lot of flavor. Hopefully the dozen or so that are growing now will get enough outside time to develope a bit more sweetness.

Garden on!

29 comments:

Warmth? Warmth? What is this warmth you speak of? I swear it doesn't exist. Monday is supposed to be a sleety mess here. Yuck. I do want to start planting soon though. I should have planted peas a week ago.

And I don't blame you with that spinach. I always wait for the new spring growth to start on my overwintered spinach. The old winter leaves are too high in oxalic acid anyway. Not particularly good to eat. I need to take a photo of mine as the plants (and the kale) are looking very very ragged. But the hope is they will put out new growth and that will be good.

I printed off a list of 'how much to plant per person' for different veg the other day. Says 4 spinach plants per person. I eat butt-tons of spinach (the list says it's just a guide, may need adjustments ...). How far should 27 plants go? Wish we had spinach plants ready to harvest now. Would save us a bit at the grocer!

I steal the young leaves for salads whenever I can, and when we eat it cooked, it takes a huge basket full, so 27 plants would probably be a drop in the bucket for two of us! We do love our spinach, and daughter wants some for juicing. Four per person? Hahahahaha! I think I have about fifty in the garden, plus the over wintered bed, plus a dozen or so in the salad box on the patio.

It's 84F here today with lots of crazy wind. My tomato plants are starting to grow after getting over the shock of being transplanted. We have a really short amount of time for tomatoes to set fruit here. We go from too cold to too hot within a just a few weeks. I suppose it makes us stronger to have to deal with the things that drive us crazy. I wouldn't know what to do if I lived in an area that was perfect for gardening.

I do too! not being able to taste is the worst. you don't use artificial sweeteners do you? they desensitize the taste buds and cause neurological damage. they should not even be allowed on the market!

Kelli, I was born to a diabetic mother, and raised a diabetic son. I've used artificial sweeteners most of my life and never a problem with them! No, the radiation zapped the taste buds about a week into the treatments. Unfortunately, the things that I can taste the best are salt, spice and chocolate. I'm basically force feeding myself to try to get back to a balanced diet, as I dropped way too much weight this past month. Not fair after spending several months 2012-2013 losing and then working to maintain! My body is not used to the junk food I've begun to consume for calories.

Jealous of your warmer weather. It's been monsoon season west of the cascades. I have yet to get it in gear to start my seeds at different times. One of these days, it'll click and then I will have some of my favorite greens to enjoy longer.

I'm pulling up the "old" chard...starting to get too chewy...it's on it's 3rd Spring so it served me well. I don't plant spinach...I use chard instead. We're getting a bit of much needed rain...and I'm planting in the rain: it's wonderful. I'm looking forward to the photos of your Sweet Peas...I didn't get around to planting any this year and I love them so.

Great job getting all that done! Glad you were feeling well enough to do it! I love the look of sweet peas but I am afraid to grow them in the back yard. I think they are poisonous to dogs and afraid Coco might eat them. Nancy

I'm so glad you could get out and garden. What a welcome relief from winter and all kinds of troubles. Winter had it's last gasp here the last few days with cold rain, windy, blah! But Sunshine is sunshine and 65, and 75 Mon-Fri.The plan is to plant Yukon Gold potatoes and Walla Walla onions on Monday. I am feeling better after a couple of rough post-chemo days, but I'm so looking forward to SUNSHINE and 70's!

I'm so happy to hear you are feeling better! Looks like I'll be starting chemo on April 14. Ha-ha, I have my Yukon Golds and Walla Wallas all planted. Well, I do have a few of the onions left over, so they will go in the cabbage bed later. I suppose we'll get a few light frosts in April, we normally do.

I bet it was good to get a little gardening done. And I can't believe you are eating Happy Yummy peppers in March! I overwintered one Aji Angelo plant, but no Happy Yummys. Was it a hot or a sweet? I was amazed my 2009 seed is still good, but it came up better than my 2011 seed.

It was a sweet. I gave my youngest son a hot, but he killed it :-( My hot Yummy had sugar-sweet flesh, with hot seeds. Actually a nice combination. I saved seeds from one of last year's sweet, and have two new little plants growing for 2014.

I so envy your weather. Yesterday got to a BALMY-yes, balmy considering what we have been- 42 degrees. I couldn't see my raised beds, but kind of "guessed" where they were and I set up a cold frame to thaw the snow there. I'm hoping to sow it in a few weeks. I'm so glad you're getting out there ---I knew when you said you might not garden that the ol' tough granny would shine through and do it anyways. Love your perseverance ( I know that's probably spelled wrong!)Have a wonderful week!

It's supposed to be lovely here all this week. I'm hoping to dig up enough stamina to put in the gazillion radish and carrot mats I made through the winter. Hmmm....just how many radishes can this family consume. What can I say, I'm a seed gluing junkie.

Of course you knew I'd give it a try. If I get half a garden planted, it will be something. I couldn't just give up with all of you guys "watching" me......your Granny has never been a quitter, I'm actually a stubborn old broad :-)

It's great to see you still tackling your garden!! Your awesome! I wish our weather would just make up it's mind. One day it's 70 and fantastic, the next day we have snow, and the next we're back in the 70's. It's making it really hard to get anything done in garden!

Tackling may be too strong a word, Stoney! It gets slower each day, but I'm still trying :-) At least our temps have settled into the normal range, perfect for planting the cool weather crops. I got some radishes and carrots in yesterday, and looking forward to more carrots and cole crops in the near future.

We had a beautiful day yesterday, too, except the wind. However, I did nothing at all toward gardening. Our grass is beginning to show just a bit of green. The rest of the week is supposed to be below normal temps, so gardening is not even on the horizon. I'll just have to live vicariously through you.

Mr. Granny is charging up the battery on the riding mower as we speak. The grass really greened up and grew these past couple of weeks. Of course, Annie and Otto kept it well fertilized over the winter!